Portland Architecture

2012: looking back and ahead

Vestas headquarters (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

For more than four years now, the economy and architects' role in it has seemed to be partially recovered from the lowest depths of 2007 and 2008's catastrophes, yet unable to reach anything close to full throttle.

Indicators such as the American Institute of Architects' Architecture Billing Index show a succession of peaks and valleys, inching above the magic number of 50 (meaning economic expansion) only to slide back down again. In 2012, for example, the ABI began at a healthy 51.3, rose in ensuing months up to nearly 55, then fell in the summertime down to 45.8, and finished this year at 53.2. But that's a substantial improvement over a few years prior. Between January 2008 and September 2010, the index never surpassed positive territory at 50.

The real estate market also seems to have good tea leaves to read from. According to the Realty Times, the Portland real estate market is seeing both pending and closed sales at their highest levels since 2006. Inventory at year's end has dropped to 3.8 months of supply, with pending sales up by 15.9 percent. The average home price grew by 10 percent.

As we look back on the past year in architecture, progress seems to be adding up. A look around the city shows a number of projects underway from housing to offices to institutional projects. But besides economics, how else is the city changing? What are today's projects and proposals likely to mean for Portland in the future?

Transit

This morning while driving on Grand Avenue, I took notice of the east side's new streetcar loop, and began to think of the changes it could bring to Grand and the parallel MLK boulevard, as well as Northeast Broadway beside the Broadway Bridge and the Rose Quarter. In the past, streetcar lines in Portland have acted as a development tool. Will the boarded-up buildings and surface parking lots along MLK and Grand give way to new high-density architecture? That will be especially important near the Rose Quarter, where the two arenas are isolated by asphalt and bad urban planning. As this area becomes more walkable, though, and the Portland Development Commission takes over redevelopment of the Rose Quarter garages and lots, the Rose Quarter could finally begin to become the east side center that it has always been destined to be.

Further south, there is even more transit building that could transform the city on both sides of the river. The new bridge being built over the Willamette for MAX trains and pedestrians is already prompting development on the west side. A new Collaborative Life Sciences building for OHSU and other Oregon universities is under construction, and the Zidell Marine Company's owners say they are finally ready to develop their massive 30-acre riverfront parcel between South Waterfront and Riverplace, which will allow one continuous strip of urbanity along the west side of the river and will give Portland an entirely new district, the Zidell Yards, complete with a new park under the Ross Island Bridge.

MAX bridge under construction (photo by Brian Libby)

But the new bridge could bring even more change to the east side of the river. Today the area where the bridge will touch down is mostly industrial, with the Ross Island Sand & Gravel company's facilities just to the south and the Central Eastside Industrial District to the north, as well as the Portland Opera and OMSI nearby. But it's easy to imagine that the land near the bridge, which also touches busy Division Street, will eventually be re-zoned to become a mixed-use waterfront neighborhood with residential, retail and office space just like that being built in South Waterfront and the Zidell Yards.

Of course we can't talk about transit without mentioning the ongoing embarrassment that is the Columbia River Crossing bridge project. It was a once-in-generations opportunity to build something great, something expressive of Portland's aspirations and rising prominence in the world. Instead we've settled for a flat slab of banal Anywheresville highway. This stretch of highway needs a local bridge to Vancouver, not to replace an existing span. Think of it this way: if the Marquam Bridge carrying I-5 drivers over the Willamette were downtown Portland's only bridge, would the right move be to build a local bridge like the Hawthorne or Burnside Bridge to go with it, or to tear down the Marquam and Replace it?

And speaking of the Marquam, one of the quieter happenings in 2012 yet one that could have far reaching effects is the revisiting of a long-simmering idea to bury a portion of I-5 in the Central Eastside in order to reclaim about a mile of riverfront. It's just a study, and there are most definitely no imminent plans to start digging anytime soon. Yet prying the freeway from the riverfront is exciting to think about.

Though it would admittedly come at a very large cost for such a large infrastructure project, probably too high for Portland to currently afford without lots of federal help, burying the freeway would transform the east-side riverfront of Portland in a way that would, over time, make for an entirely different city.

Maybe it's good that for decades now the presence of the freeway has helped protect the Central Eastside as an industrial district and prevented the kind of boom-and-bust cycle that happened in the Pearl District and South Waterfront. The character of this warehouse district is entirely different than the west side, grittier and smaller-scale, and to its benefit. Today the industrial activity happens alongside a burgeoning array of restaurants and creative-industry businesses.

Eastbank Freeway tunnel map (courtesy City of Portland)

But taking the towering, loud freeway away from the riverfront and opening it up to development would be a game changer that would pay for itself economically and culturally many times over. It would transform a massive chunk at the very center of the city.

Housing and Parking

Speaking of housing, one of the biggest success stories of the local building industry in 2012 has been the return of the high-density housing market, particularly rental apartments. On Division Street alone there have been at least a half-dozen projects in various stages of completion this year.

But here and in other historic neighborhoods, there has been a growing outcry over apartment buildings being built without onsite parking. Residents fear that the up-for-grabs street parking they've heretofore enjoyed will be over-utilized by other residents. Nevermind that no street parking is guaranteed, or that this smacks of the worst kind of NIMNY-ism. After four years of city-wide yearning for the building industry to return, the city actually seems to be considering the creation of a moratorium on apartment projects without onsite parking. Not only is this an unequivocal embarrassment to Portland's efforts to become a progressive, pedestrian and transit-friendly city, but a moratorium also isn't necessary and isn't going to solve the problem. The solution lies in getting more specific about density.

Take a look at the string of projects along Division. Most of them saw developers make good-neighbor agreements with the surrounding neighborhoods and, more importantly, were of a density that added cars to the neighborhood but not so many as to render street parking unavailable. Only one project was so dense as to surpass the tipping point and create a real parking problem. What we need is not a moratorium on apartments without parking - they are inherent to any self-respecting city. What we need is a maximum density per project when the apartment lacks parking. There is a huge difference between, say, a three-story project without parking and a five-story project in terms of what they do to parking in any two or three-block radius. What we need is not a heavy-handed move that hinders smart development, I'd argue, but a nuanced move that articulates sustainable density from unsustainable.

Sustainability and Renovations

When I think of 2012's most significant architecture stories, they all seem to have to do with sustainability and/or renovations in one form or another.

For the first time this year, for instance, three different projects by Portland firms made it onto the prestigious AIA Committee on the Environment's Top 10 Green Projects List: THA Architecture's Mercy Corps headquarters in Portland's Old Town, Opsis Architecture's Hood River Middle School Music and Science Building, and Hennebery Eddy's Portland Community College Newberg Center.

Then there were two huge public building projects, one that seems destined to remain unbuilt and another that is nearing the end of construction.

The Oregon Sustainability Center, combining offices for the city, Portland State University and other public and private sector organizations, was to have been the first multi-tenant building in the world designed to stringent Living Building Challenge standards. But while an 11th-hour deal with Interface Engineering almost seemed to save the project after it couldn't get necessary state backing, ultimately the deal fell apart. With Sam Adams leaving office, it's unclear if not doubtful that the new mayor, Charlie Hales, will try to rekindle the project.

Green-Wyatt federal building under construction (photo by Brian Libby)

Meanwhile, the re-construction of the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt federal building downtown is turning out to be a fascinating and compelling addition to Portland's skyline. The project is expected to achieve a 55-60 percent reduction in energy use compared to a normal code-designed building as well as a 65 percent reduction in potable water consumption. After stripping down to its frame the original 1970s building, a design by James Cutler and SERA Architects reclads it in glass with a west-facing facade covered in a patterned array of metal screens. The roof is tilted at an angle to optimize solar panels orientation; the visual effect seems whimsical, it it's form rooted in function.

The Wyatt project is just one of many renovations that seemed to, collectively, overshadow new construction in 2012. There are also renovations planned but yet to begin, such as the 511 Broadway building's renovation by Allied Works for the Pacific Northwest College of Art, which will help transform the North Park Blocks into PNCA's campus. Then there is Memorial Coliseum, long a personal crusade, which was set for a City Council vote on its restoration a few weeks ago only to see the vote set aside until the new year because of trouble with the Portland Winterhawks, who are contributing some $10 million to the Coliseum renovation but were recently subjected to a series of financially-damaging penalties by the Western Hockey League. By the time City Council takes up the vote again in 2013, it will have a new makeup, with Mayor Charlie Hales and new Council member Steve Novick replacing Sam Adams and Randy Leonard, respectively.

Big and small business

On the private-sector side, the biggest story may have been the opening of the American headquarters for Danish wind-turbine manufacturer Vestas. For developer Gerding Edlen, a Pearl District stalwart behind the Brewery Blocks and the Wieden + Kennedy headquarters, the team of GBD Architects and Ankrom Moisan transformed the circa 1927 Meier & Frank Depot Building into a headquarters for Vestas teeming with natural light thanks to a large central atrium. The Vestas building is designed to meet Platinum-level LEED strictures and is 68 percent more energy efficient than a building designed to code.

Yet if I were to explain Portland to an out-of-town visitor, talk would inevitably turn from these big individual building or transit projects to the ongoing culture of food carts and out city's burgeoning identity as a population that likes to eat out. One of my favorite small projects of the year was developer-designer Kevin Cavenaugh's The Ocean, which renovated a former tire center on a slow stretch of NE Glisan near 24th and Sandy into a handful of micro-sized restaurant spaces offering everything from meatballs and pie to fish tacos and Asian hot wings. But I'm also intrigued by new efforts around town to create food-cart pods with some unified sense of design, however modest. Part of food carts' charm is their individuality, but designers could help make them work and look better as collective spaces.

Looking ahead to 2013 and beyond, hopefully a more robust economy will help put more architects back to work. But one also hopes the last decade has also taught us to build more intelligently, at a scale that makes sense and is built for the sake of its users.

 

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Hits and misses eradicating local homelessness

Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp (photo by Israel Bayer for Street Roots)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Today's Oregonian includes two stories about the struggle against homelessness that together say a lot about the up-and-down nature of the problem and how we approach it.

First, there was a Mike Francis interview with the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki, in which the secretary says the country remains on track to end homelessness among military veterans in 2015. Shinseki told reporters Monday there has been "clear and remarkable" progress in the federal government efforts to reduce such homelessness.

Next year, Francis reports, the VA will triple its community grants addressing homelessness among veterans and their families. The agency will also spend $300 million awarding competitive grants under the agency's Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, which provides homeless beds in Portland and beyond. Shinseki spoke as part of the just-released Department of Housing and Urban Development 2012 Point-in-Time Estimate of homeless people.

"The numbers are drawn from an intensive effort to count the homeless on a single night last January," Francis explains. "Overall, the survey showed that overall U.S. homelessness remained roughly constant, with an estimated 633,782 people sleeping outdoors or in a shelter. But the homeless veterans component of that total declined to 62,619, about 7.2 percent lower than in 2011."

This kind of study is by nature imperfect, providing only a snapshot of the homeless population on one evening. But if the picture is accurate, it's worth celebrating that homeless veterans are living on the streets less often. A major factor in this progress has been Portland VA's Community Resource and Referral Center in downtown Portland. "The center, which opened in April, is one of the nation's first in a program the VA has rolled out to address homelessness and other problems, such as substance abuse and unemployment," Francis writes.

However, today's Oregonian also included a report by Rebecca Koffman that supporters of the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp at SW Fourth and Burnside marched on City Hall Monday to protest the monthly city fines that are placing the camp in jeopardy. The camp, which sits on private property, is charged only $1 per year by landlords Michael Wright, Linda, Daniel and Donna Cossette. But the city's development bureau is imposing fines of $1,346 per month for violating recreational campground codes.

Nevermind that Right 2 Dream Too is decidedly not a recreational campground. More importantly, Oregon law allows for two such sites within a city, and Portland only has one: Dignity Village.

In other words, for all its efforts to build homeless resource centers and take other steps to curb homelessness in Portland, the city is playing hardball with Right 2 Dream Too.

Why? I think it's because of location. Dignity Village is tucked away in the Sunderland neighborhood of Northeast Portland, about seven miles from downtown near the airport. Not only is it allowed by the city, but City Council has even taken steps repeatedly from efforts to have it closed. But Right 2 Dream Too sits on the city's most unifying street, Burnside, right where downtown meets Old Town. It sits blocks away from restaurants, condos and art galleries. Thus, it's not just a homeless encampment, the thinking seems to go, but an embarrassing eyesore.

There are legitimate concerns on both sides.

The Holst Architecture-designed Bud Clark Commons (photo by Brian Libby)

From the city's perspective, Old Town has been a destitute, crime-ridden area for many decades, yet big strides have been made in recent years. It's not at all to say that homeless people and their camps should be swept out of view from the rest of us frequenting restaurants, galleries, offices and condos. But the city just invested in the award-winning Bud Clark Commons(designed by Portland's Holst Architecture), a resource center for the homeless, and it has made numerous other investments to provide alternatives to such DIY homeless camps. Places like Right 2 Dream Too, stitched together with canvass, string and plastic, are precisely what Bud Clark Commons seeks to render unnecessary.

Yet it's never so simple. Homelessness is too much of a wicked problem to imagine that any amount of investment by the public or private sectors can be truly eradicated. If Right 2 Dream Too is emblematic of that, we should endeavor not simply enable or disable that effort with how we interpret city regulations, but to learn from it. If Right 2 Dream Too needs to go away, what's the alternative for these people? What does it say about the location of Dignity Village? And if state law allows for two such camps, where might we move R2DT if it must leave Old Town? Assessing fines is just a passive-aggressive bureaucratic move. It doesn't solve the problem or address its root causes.

Furthermore, why can't design solve this? Right 2 Dream Too has even worked with architects to create more of a permanent settlement. As Street Roots' Joanne Zuhl has argued, does it have to be brick and mortar and institutionally driven or nothing?

Coincidentally, not long after reading the two Oregonian stories today, I received a press release from the nonprofit Dill Pickle Club about a poster sale this Saturday that's part of a fundraising effort and awareness campaign about resisting foreclosures. The poster, by comic artist Jesse Reklaw, is being sold at a special release party held by the Dill Pickle Club and fellow nonprofit We Are Oregon at the Northeast Portland home of Alicia Jackson, who is featured in the poster, moved back into her home with community support on May 1st of this year, and remains in her home resisting foreclosure.

"Don't Move Out" illustrations (courtesy Dill Pickle Club)

"When people hear about folks fighting foreclosure, sometimes their reaction is to blame the victim and place responsibility for the crisis on the individual borrowers" said Angus Maguire, of WAO, in the press release. "This poster is a great tool because it shows clearly how it isn't so cut and dry. Banks and developers bear responsibility for the ongoing crisis, and this poster will help us reach more folks as we organize to hold banks and developers accountable."

Considering the three stories together - the homeless vet housing, the fines mounting against a homeless camp, the resistance against bank foreclosures - I was struck by the fact that the military in this case, is coming out as the more progressively humane institution than either Portland city government or the financial institutions holding most of our money and retirement accounts. This is just a one-time snapshot and not the rule, of course. The military has often been criticized for its spotty record taking care of veterans' health once they return from the battlefield. But it goes to show that, if the reduced homeless-vet numbers cited in Francis's Oregonian story are accurate, that progress can be made.

Hopefully, though, both the military and the city understand that this isn't a conflict we can parachute into, quickly win, and then forget about. This isn't Grenada. Homelessness is like Vietnam, something we're capable of winning but requires a nimbleness and persistence we may not have the coordination or stomach for.

 

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"It can bring us economic impact multiple times the renovation" - notes from City Council's Coliseum hearing

Memorial Coliseum (photo by Brian Libby) 

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Imagine if Portland hosted the nation's biggest regular-season college basketball tournament, one featuring the top programs in America. Imagine the return of the US Figure Skating Championships, or the Dew Sports tour, or Davis Cup tennis. These are the very real bookings for Memorial Coliseum, and can generate enough economic activity to more than pay for its restoration. And don't listen to me say it: Listen to the experts.

Last week, Portland's City Council began the process of voting on a $31.5 million renovation plan for Memorial Coliseum. The plan would tap $10 million in donations from the Winterhawks hockey team and pair it with $17.1 in Portland Development Commision funding and $4.4 million in loans.

Although I was one of the people testifying last week in favor of the Coliseum restoration (on behalf of the Friends of Memorial Coliseum and supporting partners like the American Institute of Architects, the Cascadia chapter of the US Green Building Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation), I'd like to share here some of the other people's testimony. For while City Council invited public testimony from anyone in the community, not a single person spoke last week against the restoration, but countless community leaders came to argue for the building.

Tom Welter, executive director of the Oregon School Activities Association, which administers all school sports tournaments in the state, was one of those giving testimony.

"We conduct 116 state championships each year. We use Memorial Coliseum as much as the Rose Festival," said Welter. "Our first tournament was in 1966 and this is the 47th consecutive year. For our wrestling tournaments, we have 160 of our high schools come into Portland. But currently our basketball tournaments are not held there because the scoreboard doesn’t work. For the vast majority, it’s the pinnacle of their athletic career. We want to provide the best venue and experience possible. Right now we’re using the Rose Garden. We can’t afford to be there much longer, because we don’t draw the crowds. We’re very interested in moving that event to the Coliseum."

Welter's testimony was important because it helps articulate the model for a two-arena configuration such as we have with the Coliseum and the Rose Quarter. The Coliseum is our place for amateur athletics, for college graduations and community activities in addition to minor-leage Winterhawks hockey, while the Rose Garden is where our top pro team, the Trail Blazers, play and where top concert tours touch down.

But it's the two-arena configuration's ability to host large events in both arenas at once that gives the Coliseum added econonomic value.

Speaking of which, next came Drew Mahalic, CEO of the Oregon Sports Authority.

"It can be a catalyst for much-needed economic development," he told City Council. "The renovation of the Coliseum can place Portland in a class by itself. We’ll be the only city anywhere with two first-rate arenas just a few feet apart that can give us advantages to get events that nobody else can get. It gives us a chance to get back the US Figure Skating Championships, to get back the Dew Tour."

"In just a few years - this one excites me so much - we are going to be able to host the greatest in season basketball tournament of all time," Mahalic added, "with 24 teams coming to Portland - Kentucky, Duke, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida - to celebrate Phil Knight’s 80th birthday. That can’t happen without a renovated Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The economic impact from that event alone will exceed $31 million, which is the amount we’re talking about for the restoration. This can give our city a competitive advantage. It can bring us economic impact multiple times the renovation. It’s really what we’ve been waiting for, and I would encourage you to favorably consider it."

Memorial Coliseum (photo by Brian Libby)

For those who question the Coliseum's architectural value despite its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, consider the economic support for the building offered by Carly Riter of the Portland Business Alliance.

"A lot of painstaking and detailed work has gone into this proposal," Riter told City Council. "The result is a collaborative deal that works, that lays the groundwork for future partnerships, and provides real community benefit for the neighborhood, the city, and the region. This project is exactly the kind of investment that urban renewal was designed to provide, and produces the short and long term benefits that epitomize the role of urban renewal."

"Second, this development will catalyze this area and spur economic investment in the broader Rose Quarter area," Riter added. "This project will provide certainty for other investors that the city is a dedicated partner in revitalizing this neighborhood. Third, it creates a local and regional benefit by offering a viable entertainment facility for the Portland Winterhawks and other events. This attracts new energy to the area, enlivening it with civic and economic activity. Having the city and the PDC involved in this project and poised to assist with future development opportunities in this area will support additional strategic investment."

Ronald Carr addressed Mayor Adams and Council on behalf of local veterans.

"We are veterans and we know what it means to serve…as well as the sacrifices made by our families back home," Carr said. "We remember every person who gave a sacrifice…in America we value the life of every human being, and this is a driving force in everything we do as veterans. We leave no one behind and we remember. Forever, we remember."

"Throughout our history, we’ve heard many battle cries: Remember the Maine. Remember the Alamo. Remember Pearl Harbor, and remember 9/11," Carr added. "It’s not just that we want to remember. It’s also that we need to remember. We need to help other people in other generations remember by sharing these stories, memories and traditions with our children and grandchildren. This is why the Veterans Memorial Coliseum and Memorial Gardens are so important to our community and society. It comes down to something as simple as this: we want and need to remember, but it is extremely important to never forget."

Finally, Jeff Curtis of the Portland Rose Festival Foundation spoke. "This is the home of our largest event and a significant one. It’s part of our history," he told the Council. "Back in 1961, the Rose Festival was one of the stakeholders that was part of a conversation to get the building constructed. We were one of the first events in that facility. The facility designed its doors in parallel fashion specifically to be the home of the Grand Floral Parade. So there’s a lot of historical and emotional ties to our beloved Grand Floral Parade. There’s an economic value to the Rose Festival, and the building is a big factor in our Grand Floral Parade and our operating budget. But it also provides an opportunity for tour groups, seniors, who don’t want to go out on the streets. It’s the only parade venue in the United States that’s indoors. That’s a competitive advantage in the special events and tourism market."

Finally, Fred Leeson, president of the Architectural Heritage Center (and a contributor to this blog) addressed Council.

"I read through the ordinances yesterday online, and I noticed all the references to the economic risk," Leeson began. "I just wanted remind some of you who probably were not here in the 1970s, when I was a newspaper reporter for the Oregon Journal and covering the Exposition and Recreation Commission, which then managed the Coliseum, is that the Coliseum gave up literally millions of dollars from its revenue to subsidize Civic Stadium and Civic Auditorium. In so in a sense, in supporting the Coliseum now, we’re making good on a past debt."

City Council is tentatively set to vote next week on the Coliseum restoration. The coalition of public and private sector stakeholders making this project happen is a fragile one: the announcement recently of major sanctions against the Winterhawks by the Western Hockey League sent some around City Hall wondering if it would force the team to back out of the deal. So far that hasn't happened, and Mayor Adams spoke personnally with the team's owner recently, receiving a renewed expression of support for the Coliseum restoration. The incoming City Council set to take office next year may also want to weigh in. But for now, with a little luck, the saving of this great building may be within reach.

 

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Thirty years later: a conversation with Michael Graves about the Portland Building

Portland Building (photo by Brian Libby)

BY LUKE AREHART

World renowned American architect Michael Graves has been practicing architecture since 1964 and has completed nearly 200 built examples of his craft to date, spanning many countries on four continents. Originally celebrated as one of the New York Five in the early 1970s (along with legends like Richard Meier and Peter Eisenman), Graves later became known not only for his building commissions  but a host of product designs for Target.

Graves completed one of his earliest works, The Portland Building, 30 years ago this winter. The building, one of the nation’s first major works of postmodern architecture, remains one of the most polarizing designs in history. But more than any other local building (except for perhaps Pietro Belluschi’s Equitable Building or John Yeon’s Watzek House), its impact on American architecture cannot be overstated.

Recently, Graves spoke about the Portland Building from his office in Princeton, New Jersey. 

Portland Architecture: It’s been 30 years since The Portland Building has been built. What are your current thoughts and emotions toward this historic building?

Michael Graves: I love it as much as ever. It was an important building for Portland and it was an important building for me obviously because I hadn’t done many big buildings then; it was a first on many accounts. Somebody said the other day, who called and was doing an interview, that this building changed the course of architecture in America. 

 What are your recollections about the design competition in which you won this project?

You asked about my recollections of the competition? That would take a book. It wasn’t a competition about the aesthetics because we had won on the points, which were a part of the program. You got points for doing various things: the windows, the walls, everything gave you points or subtracted points. We won on points, we won on the budget, and we won on timing. We supplied them 40,000 square foot extra for the rental of the building, all of that we did but still we hadn’t won and the reason we didn’t win was people were questioning the aesthetics of the building and the local architects were very much against it, as it was a threat to modernism. Finally we won out and by that time Phillip Johnson had left the jury, so it was up to the committee to decide, which they did on their own. 

What was your relationship like with Phillip Johnson? 

My relationship with Philip Johnson was one of knowing him casually. As I remember, I had given a lecture in New York, and he came to that. One of the ways Phillip stayed young during his career was to be friendly with the younger group of architects who he called, “the kids.” You could be 65 years old, and he would call you a kid; he was 90. He was a cheerleader for architecture and I thought that he was good on the jury, getting them to see the differences and the similarities between the schemes and he was not biased in that regard, so I was happy that he was chosen for the jury. 

I think you could write a book about this next question as well: Do you recall your initial approach/strategy in designing this building?

Sure, yes you’re right, it’s a book. I wanted to make an urban building. In opposition to let’s say the Orbanco building (currently Congress Center) across the street, which for me is not an urban building, it’s a stand-alone building and it could be built out in the desert, and it wouldn’t make any difference. Because its ground level is not pedestrian friendly and I wanted to make something that people could use at the ground level. In fact, it was part of the points system because the city planners of Portland had had enough of the Orbanco dialogue by that time, and they specified that new buildings in Portland had to have ground level activity. That’s why we have a loggia around three sides of our building.

I wanted to make a building that was civic, something that would work with the City Hall, which I greatly admired, which was next door and one that would fit into the other buildings in Portland. A lot people would say that my building doesn’t do that, but I think that’s probably the coloration of the building that causes them say that. Our building doesn’t have much forgiveness in the surface because of the budget. Our building is straight up and straight down after it does its step back because it’s essentially a concrete column and all that is dealing with the budget. 

Michael Graves (image courtesy of the architect)

Perhaps the budget is what compromised things.

The budget was so low that it was lower than a spec house would be built for in the suburbs of Portland at the time. People forget how much the budget really caused the building to be like Bob Venturi’s edict of the ‘decorated shed,’ a duck which is a building that has shape to it or a decorated shed. Ours is more of a decorated shed in that it uses color instead of form to make its differences because of the budget.

Did you know at the time that your building would put Portland on the architectural map?

No, I wasn’t worried about maps, and that wasn’t my position at all. Shortly after doing the Portland Building, we did the Humana Building in Louisville and it had a much more reasonable budget and I suppose it put Louisville on the map, but I wasn’t aware of that. That’s not why I do architecture; it really doesn’t have anything to do with making a statement like that. I wanted to make a good building. 

The Portland Building is distinct largely because of the color and imagery of the facade. What was your process in creating the composition? 

I was lecturing at the time at Princeton as a professor, and I very much believe in the tripartite arrangement of base, body and head to buildings, where the stories are different where you enter the building at the base, the body of the building is where you are accommodated and the head of the building which reaches the sky and often is lighter in coloration and façade treatment and so on, very much the way a column is base, body and head. This is really what I was after.

As I said before, I was making a civic building and composing in a way that would use the differences in the program. First of all shops of the ground level, which are colored green, green tile originally to go with the Mothers and Daughters park/garden behind the building which was a wonderful site for us. Above that, the spaces for the city and the keystone which is a different glass formation looking back at Fifth Avenue and the park, we had rental offices which were a part of the program; they were ways of breaking up the façade in the program.

If you were able to go through the process again, would you still come to Portland to design?   

Many times over, sure. I love Portland and have very, very good memories of Portland. Even at the end when Belluschi asked me to dinner and he said he wanted to ‘bury the hatchet.’ Well, I didn’t have a hatchet to bury because I wasn’t against Belluschi or anybody else, but he was against my building. He said once it’s built there was nothing he could do about it, so we might as well be friends.

Graves and Pietro Belluschi (photo courtesy Saul Zaik)

Did you see the photograph of yourself sticking your tongue out at Pietro Belluschi at that dinner?

I thought it was charming. Where did you get it? 

Saul Zaik’s office. 

He must have been there.

Beyond that, do you recall any friction between yourself and late Portland architect Pietro Belluschi? 

No, I didn’t know him at all. One time he got up at a committee meeting and said if I had columns, I ought to make them out of real material like marble, like the ones in the City Hall. I got up after him and said, “I think Mr. Belluschi should take a better look at the columns, because they are all faux painted, they’re not real, they’re plaster.” That was just something that was humorous; I wasn’t trying to show him up. 

What are your thoughts of Portland now, in comparison with the early 1980s? 

I really can’t answer that question because I haven’t been there. I usually go places where I’m invited to build and to work, and I haven’t been invited back [to Portland] (chuckles) and I doubt that I will be.

Would you be open to the idea of a renovation of The Portland Building, perhaps with an interior atrium or some other means for additional natural light? 

That’s not a possibility, for additional light you’d have to go up 15 floors to get top light with an atrium. The whole building is a structural column, so it wouldn’t sustain that kind of thing. In a way that’s just a silly notion. You couldn’t take the guts out of the building; you’d lose all of the office space in the center.

Why are the windows relatively small given our often overcast climate?

The country was going through an energy crisis at the time and we actually got points for making small windows so that we could contain the energy in the building. There was a conflict there: I may have made them too small and a lot of people think I did. They were used to floor-to-ceiling glass in buildings like the Orbanco building but I was determined not to do that because I don’t think that makes an urban scene. Nobody ever talks about buildings like the Orbanco building in terms of a place to work. It should be noted that I didn’t do the interiors of the building, I wanted to and I competed to, but they were given to Zimmer Gunsul Frasca. 

Did you have a working relationship like with the firm designing the interior of this building?

I know Bob Frasca from college, but we didn’t talk to them during that time and they didn’t contact us.

The Portland Building seems very much of its era, a time of excitement about postmodernism in the late 1970s and '80s. Given how historic styles can fall in and out of favor, do you think The Portland Building or postmodernism will find a resurgence of interest in the future? 

What do you think postmodernism as a style is? I ask that question because nobody can answer it. It’s just a way of putting people in the closet and saying “You’re a deconstructivist,” “You’re a post-modernist,” “You’re a hyper-realist,” “You’re a figurative architect,” You’re a new urbanist.” It’s just a way for journalism to put a tag on somebody because it makes their job so much easier.

As an architect, when they say: “Are you a postmodernist” I always ask, “What is that?” And they don’t know, they have no idea; it’s just a name to them.

For me, postmodernism is a way to see the traditional city. It’s a way that, for instance, Fifth Avenue in Portland gains more traction with the transit mall and all of that than if it were a glass box city even in an empty square, which is what one of the competitors proposed. I think it’s important that when we walk in the city, that we are part of the city, that the buildings of the city speak back to us. This is what I am after in my architecture. 

I really don’t care whether so-called postmodernism, whatever one thinks that it is or any other style returns. I just want people to do good architecture.

Who are some of your favorite architects working today? 

Most of my favorites are dead. One of them, Aldo Rossi, died years ago. I suppose I’d have to say one of the architects who I admire is Leon Krier. 

As a landmark building that was named to the National Register of Historic Places last year, is The Portland Building intentionally missing from michaelgraves.com? 

No, is it missing? 

Yes, on your completed works timeline and map. 

Okay, we’ll fix that. No, it’s not intentional at all.

Given its color and playful sense of appropriated imagery, how much of a relationship do you see between postmodern architecture and Pop Art artists like Andy Warhol? 

No I don’t. It would be more in the monochromatic architecture of Mies van der Rohe than Andy Warhol. 

You made your first post-Portland Building visit back to city in 2002. What were your feelings and emotions?

It’s a wonderful city. It rains a little too much but everybody knows that. So does Seattle, but that’s part of its charm. That’s what makes it so green and lush; it’s a very positive thing. It seems to me that if all cities were as vital as Portland we’d have a wonderful place to live in America.

 

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